The True American, of Erie, Pennsylvania, said:—
“The speech from Hon. Charles Sumner, made at Worcester, Massachusetts, on the 1st inst., and which is printed in full upon our first page, deserves the attention of every reader. It is a calm and statesmanlike argument in favor of suppressing this guilty Rebellion by removing its guilty cause. It is a clear vindication of a necessary policy. Coming from a man in his high official position, it is significant. And we believe, with a contemporary, that he will not have to wait for the verdict of posterity to justify and exalt the great truth his speech embodies. Indeed, we are confident that his word will find a response in all that is best of the North,—and not only in all that is best in quality, but strongest in numbers.”
The Philadelphia Public Ledger held the scales:—
“Although Mr. Sumner, and Massachusetts at his back, are disposed to move faster than the rest of the North upon the Slavery Question, there is no doubt that whatever amount of injury, consistent with the Laws of War, inflicted on the South, will bring this Rebellion most speedily to an end will find the next Congress prepared at least to consider it. Mr. Sumner has proved very conclusively, that, as a punishment to Rebels and bad citizens, the manumission of the slaves is fully recognized by those old Roman laws which the South-Carolinians have been so fond of quoting in their own behalf. But Mr. Sumner has not proved, we think, that it would be policy to adopt at once and irrevocably so extreme a measure as to set at liberty some four millions of slaves.”
Le Messager Franco-Américain, a French journal at New York, thus balanced the account:—
“Mr. Charles Sumner, the eloquent Senator of Massachusetts, is indefatigable in his devotion to the cause of Free Labor. Always in the breach with the ardor of a true patriot and of a friend of Liberty, he contends without cessation for the triumph of those great principles of Right and Justice consecrated by the National Constitution.… Mr. Sumner is a light of the Antislavery army. He sees the cause of right and of country in danger. As a vigilant sentinel, he gives the signal of alarm. Let the civil war continue, and the cry of Emancipation by Mr. Sumner will find powerful echoes in the Northern States. The conservative and honest population at the South should reflect upon this.”
Crossing the ocean, the same differences appear, with allusions to the character of the war. Here was evident disposition to recognize in Mr. Sumner exceptional earnestness against Slavery, while the country was worse than indifferent. This view was presented by no less a person than the Earl of Shaftesbury, in a speech at a public meeting, reported in the London Times, July 25, 1861, where he said:—
“There had, however, been no great feeling in the country for either one or the other of the parties; for the country did not believe in the sincerity of either. The North had conceded everything to Slavery that it could possibly demand; so the South had certainly no cause for rebellion. But in the struggle they were entering on, the North never thought of putting an end to Slavery; for, if such a declaration had been made, they would have had the sympathy of every man in England: he was almost afraid to say how far he thought that sympathy would have gone.… There was no honest feeling on the subject of Slavery in America, except among the Abolitionists headed by that great and good man, Charles Sumner.”
Similar expressions of good-will to Mr. Sumner had appeared in France. Besides allusions in the writings of M. Laboulaye and M. Cochin, there was a contemporary notice in a letter from Washington, of August 12, 1861, in the Opinion Nationale of Paris, evidently by a gentleman who accompanied Prince Napoleon on his summer tour in the United States.